


you should leave

by marreena



Series: non omnis moriar [10]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Aftercare, Angst, Character Study, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Morning After, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-08-28 06:00:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 7,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8434363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marreena/pseuds/marreena
Summary: Her warmth leaving him saps all of his away too and even though he has not left the warmth of the blankets, he feels as though he has stepped into a night in Seheron’s deserts. It’s a chill that nothing can cure, not even a fire at full can fix, the cold seeping straight to the bone.It’s like this now too, and he just stepped away from the fire.





	1. Two Weeks

**Author's Note:**

> a study to really pinpoint when the two kids fell in love with just excerpts of them between the sheets

She’s surprisingly small when she’s curled up in bed.

Without the Inquisition straightening her shoulders and many years of training to hold her back straight, she practically folds in on herself the moment she’s in bed. Without her armor that adds so much bulk to her form, she looks small. She looks her age. 

Without her armor, he can easily see her take strangled breaths, already dragged into the fade with dreams that she has no control over. Bull can only imagine with her mark what it does to the demons in the fade—he remembers what one said, _a beacon_. 

It feels wrong to leave her like this after having his way with her till she could barely keep her eyes open, till exhaustion and pleasure saturated every single part of her body. He asked for so much from her tonight, and she was able to give him _all_  of it without ever batting a lash. The burns and marks from the ropes are still inflamed and red around her wrists, neck, and he knows the other marks that are hidden underneath the sheet. 

He should leave. Even though she’s shaking in her own bed with fear, he should walk out the door to go back to his own room for the night. There’s a boundary here. One that should be so blatant, but as every moment passes it turns more and more subtle, and he’s afraid that soon he won’t be able to see it anymore. 

Stuff like that hurts people—it will hurt _her_ , it will hurt  _him_.

The sweat still on his skin has thoroughly chilled his body and he still stands next to her bed. 

The last time she was in Val Royeaux, she bought a new bed for him—them?—and now with only her in it, she looks dwarfed. That added to her curled up form does something deeper that he can’t definitely define. It makes him think of how he looks at the Chargers after a long battle and all of them are taking a breathier—pride, perhaps, relief, definitely. 

Adoration, even. He can’t help but be fond of a girl who helped him not become his own person but realize that he had been all along. Who had stood by him and viciously bit back at those who questioned him. A girl who had been helplessly flirting with him— _everyone,_ really _—_ and had literally  _thrown_  herself at him just three weeks ago. Her voice is still stuck in his head—her laughter, her bites, her moans—and he turns around when her body stops shaking. 

He doesn’t think much of it and leaves without a back glance at her.


	2. Three Weeks

Usually, Ariala is barely able to keep her eyes open after one of their sessions, but now she is already out of bed and stretching while Bull is boneless. She fetches him a water and continues stretching, and _damn_ , isn’t that a sight. Even though moments ago he had her on top of him, riding him, he still drinks in the sight of marks on her wrists and the marks that he works so hard to ensure that they showed on her chest. Her body that’s no longer soft anymore after all of the traveling and fighting they now do, and when she turns to look at him, the only evidence of her previous life of luxury is still on her thighs—one of his favorite parts of her—and there’s marks there too. 

It’s all evidence of how hard that she’s worked for this, and Bull can’t tear his eyes away. 

She sends a teasing glance over her shoulder and he can’t help but follow the line of her body all the way down again. She laughs and starts her way towards him—she favors her right side and Bull remembers that she pulled it earlier in the week. A fact that had left his mind the moment she had positioned herself above him. Bull usually isn’t absentminded like that—like _this_.

Even though she’s sore in more than a few ways, she swings her leg over him and straddles him again. It sends a pang of heat through him seeing her like this again but he couldn’t go again even if he wanted to. His hands automatically start wandering over her hot skin that’s still incredibly soft even after all of this. 

A small scar right below her ribs is the only thing that his hands catch on. He traces it and even though he cannot see it, he can picture it, a scar about the length of her finger, not that thick, and probably from a sword grazing her. He wasn’t there when she got it, and it feels older than that. She does not say anything even as his fingers continue to trace the few lines that scatter across her body—just a small smile that tugs the corners of her lips up, maybe even teasingly, but something _more._  


Slowly and eventually, her eyes droop and her breath slows even slower than his own, and slowly her body sways until he pulls her to his chest. Her breath comes out in hot, little puffs against his neck, and now he can feel her steady heartbeat not only under his palm but against his own. 

Something viscous and acrid works up in his throat as he carefully untangles her from him and places her back into her bed. Her warmth leaving him saps all of his away too and even though he has not left the warmth of the blankets, he feels as though he has stepped into a night in Seheron’s deserts. It’s a chill that nothing can cure, not even a fire at full can fix, the cold seeping straight to the bone. 

It’s like this now too, and he just stepped away from the fire.


	3. Seven Weeks

There is a soft bristling at the front of his tent before the flap opens. 

He’s tensed ready to grab for a knife or just attack whoever was coming in—all it takes is the flash of her face and he relaxes back into his bedroll. “Need something?” he gives her a toothy grin.

She lets out a breathy laugh and starts setting up her bedroll right next to his without any space in between. “Cassandra refused to cuddle for warmth with me, and I’m absolutely chilled.” 

The moment she settles next to him, on her side, using his arm as a pillow, he throws his blanket over her. She starts to protest but he elbows her, “You’re shivering.” 

“Am I gonna keep you up?"

“Mm, probably not, but I can think of better ways you can keep me up.” He pretends to blindly grope in the dark, grabbing her ear, her nose before finally falling on his intended target of her breast and squeezes, and he briefly enjoys the fact that underneath the cotton on her sleep shirt there is nothing but soft, soft flesh. It pushes a breathy laugh out of her, but her shoulder rolls, forcing him to stop. “If you didn’t mind, I planned on just sleeping, but if you really wanted to…” 

Her icy fingers caress to dip of where his hip meets his thigh, and then there is the small threat of her nail skating closer and closer to him. It’s enough to make him hard. He wants to turn on his side, to see the teasing curl of her lips, the exhaustion that used to cloud her eyes pushed farther back by the lust and joy. He wants to see _her_. 

So he twists in the covers that barely cover him anymore, the lick of a chill running up and down his spine as he exposes his back to the frigid air of the Wastes. It is worth it, though, to see the darkness obscure her features but he still is able to make out the soft smile. It’s enough. It’s more than enough when he can put one hand around her and pull her closer.

Her smile grows more teasing, “Couldn’t wait, could you?"

The teasing shocks him a bit. More and more lately she has been able to say things like that, things that get under his skin, that show that she somehow understands him. Her icy fingers dance up his stomach and this his chest where they flatten out and he chuckles at her attempt to chill him. “You’re gonna have to try harder than that, boss,” he stutters on the last word—almost exchanging it for another word

She gives him the most unabashed and joyful grin and circles her frozen fingers around his nipples. The shiver builds in his body, but he represses it deep down. He grins back at her, matching it.

It’s then that she presses her toes against his bad ankle. If her fingers were ice then her toes were the breath of the Greater Mistral. Bull jolts away and Ariala laughs in delight inching closer to him. “Is that hard enough?” her voice turns a bit husky at the end when she presses her entire body against him, because _yes_ , something _is_  hard enough. 

Her eyes droop and she stretches in his hold so that she can press a kiss to his chin. Before her lips can go anywhere else, he pulls her back and a low guttural noise works through her throat. “What happened to just sleeping?” he whispers in her ear. 

“You did,” she gasps when his tongue traces the shell of her ear, and she twists until she can catch his lips. She huffs again when he does not respond. He just grins against her lips. She pulls back with a scowl on hers, “So you get to get me all hot and bothered and don’t take responsibility for it?” 

His finger trails up and down her lower back causing for the skin to tighten under his touch. “You’re exhausted."

“I’m _horny_."

He laughs and knocks his forehead into hers—a qunari way of showing affection that should be foreign to her, but her eyes soften. She sighs and then pushes him so he’s laying on his back once again, a much more comfortable position, and she settles into the crook of his arm. “Fine, but I better wake up with your head in between my legs.” 

He snorts, “Noted.” 


	4. 10 Weeks

A soft murmuring draws him out of his sleep and he rolls over in the bed till he’s leaning on his side—not exactly a comfortable position, but with a couple pillows it can be bearable. Ariala’s spot in the bed is empty and instead she is crouched on the ground, hands clasped together as words fall from her lips in a chant. He’s not sure exactly if it _is_  from the Chant, but as she whispers it furiously, he can only imagine it must be that. 

“Ariala,” he says softly as to not scare her but she continues with the chant until it is finished. The last verse leaves her lips and her eyes open to look at him. Bloodshot and tired with tears dried around them are all Bull needs to see to understand. The small crystal Andraste is revealed when her hands part—by some sort of joke or metaphor the figure is illuminated by the anchor and glows a dull green—and her lips part as she thinks of an excuse, an explanation. 

Instead, Bull pats the bed to where she should return and she nods. Gently, she puts the figurine back in her dresser and returns to bed with steps that don’t even make a noise on the stone floor. He falls back on his back and holds his arm out for her, and she graciously lays in the crook of his arm and curls up against his body. Ariala instantly relaxes in his loose hold, sinking and melting in the warmth. 

“Nightmare?” he asks even when he knows the answer. 

“Yeah,” she admits, voice rough from sleep and overuse. 

He hum and runs his hand up and down her body in a familiar pattern and helps the muscles relax under his touch. “You wanna talk about it, boss?” he offers even when he knows the answer. 

“Not really.” 

He nods, “If you ever change your mind.” He keeps it open for her to use whenever even though he’s pretty sure she won’t unless he nudges her a bit more. Although, there is one other thing, “You pray?” 

She lets out a soft laugh against his side, “Yeah."

“When do you do it?"

“Whenever I feel like. A night after a battle. The morning before we leave on a mission. I mean, I’m the Herald of Andraste, I feel like I should pray to her. I don’t want to let her down,” she mumbles the last part, the lull of sleep already dragging her just a bit.

“She wouldn’t smite you or anything if you didn’t, right?” 

She laughs again and presses her smile against his skin, “Mm, probably not, but I figure she saved me after the Conclave even if…she wasn’t the one who pulled me out,” she yawns. “If I hadn’t been called the Herald of Andraste they probably would have executed me.” 

Bull thinks on it and in many ways she is right. Pinning her as a religious symbol has saved her in many ways that just pulling her out of the Fade does not compare. “I guess she does deserve a couple prayers then,” he hums and lets himself be pulled closer into the warmth of sleep.

“She does.” 

“You ever pray after we fuck?” he asks, egging her just a bit.

She grunts and pinches him in the ribs, “Don’t,” because she can see where this is going.

“I’m just saying, maybe you repeat some of your chant while I fuck you nice and deep and we see how long you can keep going.” 

“I don’t know enough Chant for that,” she mutters and Bull can feel her teasing smile against him. 

He grunts and pinches her ass, “Brat."


	5. Twelve Weeks

He laughs when he feels her crawl on him after them just settling in their bedrolls. “You’re given me a run, boss,” he grunts.

Ariala is… _insatiable_. Her libido was never-ending, and some nights it was not him asking for something that she could not give him, it was her asking for _more, more, more_. And just like that, he gives even past what feels physically possible.

Bull wonders, if it is normal. If why she demands so much is for more reasons than just _lust_. He wishes he could ask, but that would require him tearing down the boundary, the wall that she has so carefully and precariously crafted. Just one nudge, one attempt at a glimpse past it and it would come tumbling down crushing both of them. 

(He _desperately_  wants to ask if it’s because of the people who have touched her when she did not want them to, because of the people who never stopped when she begged them to—it makes him furious what they did to her—and that fury _scares_  him—what he would do for Ariala, what he would lose of himself for Ariala)

He grips her ass and squeezes enjoying the small moan dragged from her. She attempts to remain quiet when they’re in the tents and more often than not it is made into a game for them, or he just sticks a rag in her mouth and gives her _more._  


She kisses him, not giving either of them time to respond. She also starts rolling her hips, desperate for some sort of friction— _so_ it’s one of _those_  nights where she’s been driven to the edge during the day and just now she’s able to seek release. Bull obliges her, letting her take control of the course of how the night would go. 

“Good girl,” he murmurs when she leaves his lips only to suck a mark into his neck. A smile presses into shoulder and then she nips, continuing the mark and kiss him. He grins and props his arms behind his head, knowing where this was going. Her eyes flick up at him, narrowing at his new lazy, male posture. 

He winks at her, so she bites his nipple. He yelps and her tongue is instantly there not to soothe but tease the sore flesh, and from there she just keeps going _down and down_. It really does not take much to free him from his clothes, she knows them as well as she knows her own now and she’s just as eager to get him out of his. 

He hisses at the first lick of heat on him and then settles into the pleasure that runs straight up his spine as he sinks deeper and deeper into her heat. Rarely does she ever pleasure him like this, usually she’s on the receiving end and there’s just so many things that he wants to do to her that this almost seems like a waste of time, but _fuck_ , with her hand and mouth on him, he feels as though he could just die. This was enough to make him believe in that Maker and Andraste she treasured so dearly. 

She sinks all the way down and he loses himself to the pleasure. He doesn’t throw his head back like he wants to, he watches her take every bit of him.

She stays on him for a second and then pulls off and coughs, full body like she was choking. “A bit too much, boss?” he chuckles, sitting up to help rub her back if need be. 

Ariala wheezes and cannot catch her breath, she just looks at him with desperate eyes. He then sees the little black and yellow ink on her lips and presses a hand to her forehead. Sure enough, the skin is burning under his touch and he can feel the welts slowly forming. He immediately starts rummaging through his pack. “Hey, hey deep breaths, Ariala. Just stay calm. You got some of my vitaar in your mouth, but don’t worry I have the antidote right here.”  

He pulls out the bottle to let her see, but her eyes are dazed just a bit and he doesn’t know how there she still is. “You have to drink some of this, okay?” He brings the bottle to her swollen lips and tips it back—thankfully, she drinks it. He then takes what is left of the bottle and rubs the remedy on her face and neck for an immediately effect. 

He keeps one hand around her wrist as he waits for the medicine to kick in. He counts her heartbeats to make sure there are not too many or too little. Thankfully, they are at a steady pace except for a small amount of stumbles. “The symptoms include confusion and swelling—although, you look a little worse than that. You might be allergic to something in it. Huh, figures.” 

At that, she manages to send him a deadly look but focuses on her breathing. She still wheezes but her chest and head must be clearing up. The hand that he isn’t holding wraps around his other and threads their fingers together—desperate for a bit of comfort. “You’re doing great,” he murmurs, brushing the inner of her wrist with his thumb. 

“Fuck…you…” she breathes and struggles after that but from the look in her eyes, he knows it was definitely worth it.

Bull snorts, “I think we might need to wait on that.” 

Slowly, she leans forward and rests her forehead against his chest, “No…fun…” 


	6. 15 Weeks

“You going to the Herald’s room again?” 

Bull turns to look at Krem. His smile entirely teasing as he leans forward on the back of his chair to rest his arms on his knees. His tankard hangs empty and forgotten in his hand, too late for another refill. “What?” 

“You sleeping in the Herald’s bed tonight?” he repeats again.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he nearly snarls, the threat nearly there, ebbing at the surface.

Krem throws his hands up, “Whoa, Chief, just asking so I know where to come for you in the morning if you don’t show up to training, _again_.” 

His jaw clenches and he nods, “Yeah, I’m heading up now.” 

“Chief, I didn’t mean to set you in a mood. Is there trouble in paradise? You know you can talk to me,” Krem offers as an apology.

He shrugs, “I just didn’t think—“ that they were that obvious, but they _were_. For shit’s sake, she practically sat in his lap half the time she was in the tavern. It’s also not like he hasn’t pressed her up against the tavern walls outside and fucked her. Or dragged her up to his _or_  her room with alcohol and her body clouding his actions. “There’s no trouble,” he settles.

Krem gives him _a look_ , “Fine, but if you ever need an ear, I have two.” 

“Keep it that way, Krem.” 

When he makes it up to her room, she’s already in the bed with the covers pulled tight around her. He freezes at the top of the steps and considers going back down—she does not need him tonight.

He is self indulgent, though, and goes straight for the bed. He strips down and lifts the cover, almost feeling her warmth that would seep into him. However, he is met with an eyeful instead. Under the covers, she is completely bare, and unlike Bull, she usually does wear a slip to bed.

“Oh, you little,” he growls and launches into bed after her. The moment his hands grab at her soft sides, she lets out a shrill shriek that’s followed by a laugh as he tickles her. “You little brat,” he huffs, biting down on her shoulder. 

She laughs and finally twists in his grip to see him and there is absolutely no sleep in her eyes—she feigned it, she _tricked_ him. “Got you,” she laughs and taps her forehead against his. “Stop!” she shrieks when he starts up again. The sensitive skin of her upper thighs and waist are so ticklish that she arches and tries to get away from his incessant fingers. Her hands fly to his, trying to stop him, but he grabs her hands instead and restrains them at her side. 

At that, her eyes glaze and meet his once more. “ _Oh_?” she snickers and pulls at his hold, finding that his hold is unrelenting. She wiggles once more, “What’s got you in a mood?"

He growls at the tease, at how she knows that something is off with him. He can feel her pulse steadily quickening under his hold and he can see the faint flutter on her neck. “What do you want, Bull?” 

  
_You_. 

He wants her and everything about her so bad he can barely think anything coherent anymore when he’s around her. It’s made training detrimental and fighting disastrous.

“How about,” she licks her lips and her eyes flick down to his, “you get that rope from under the bed and tie me however you like?” She does not fight against his hold anymore and instead just sinks into it, so trusting. “And then, you can tease me however you like. We always do what _I_  want. Let’s do something entirely _you_.” 

What he wants is not something easily said or quantifiable. There’s so much and he feels as though he could go on and on all night about all the different ways he wants her, how he wants her, and not all of them are sexual in nature. 

He grins at her and reaches under the bed for the silk ropes he keeps there, and the smaller slip of silk that is a definite favorite of his. All red and all delicious looking against her golden skin.

He ties the blindfold around her head first and enjoys how her breath stutters the moment her vision is taken away. He then starts on the other restraints. 

They end up not sleeping that night. 


	7. Twenty Weeks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fair warning this chapter does contain mention of child rape/sexual abuse

“Tell me something no one else knows,” she asks him one night. 

The shine on her chest is still drying and her hair is splayed out on her pillow—earlier in the night he had teased her and slowly taken it out of its braids. Bull himself has gotten out of the bed, already cleaned and put everything away. 

He grins at her and stalks towards the bed, this, _this_  is definitely going to be interesting. 

It’s not easy lying on his side in bed, not even counting his horns, his shoulders are enough to put a kink in his neck, but with enough pillows and a determination to look at her, he does it. Especially if she invited him to play a game like this.

“When I was little, I tripped over a tree root and hurt my ankle bad. My ankles never been right since. Okay, your turn.” 

She slaps his chest, “Ass! You cheated.”

He shrugs, “Shoulda been more specific, boss. Now come on, fess up.” 

“There’s not a lot about me that no one else knows. I am _very_ open.” 

“You know, somehow I doubt that.” 

“Fine, when I was little my mother put leeches on my feet to try and prevent me from being a mage.”

“Really?”

“It’s an old, Marcher superstition. She also used to dunk me in cold water.”

“Did it work?”

“Did it? Probably not but I mean I will never know since I don’t have a drop of magic in me. Okay, now you have to give one.”

“Another? I lost half my pinkie from being tortured by some Tal Vasoth.”

“And the other?” 

“Krem knows how I lost that one, so it doesn’t really count.”

“Still.”

“Still? I lost grip on my axe once and tried to block another mere—his sword just slipped down my hilt till it took off my finger.”

“My hair isn’t actually this light. I put lemon in it during the summer to bleach it.” 

“I thought it was getting darker…” he murmurs and runs a hand over the curls, twirling one between his fingers. 

“My mother always loved my blonde curls, but when they started to darken, she started lightening them.”

“It seems like your mother did a lot to change you.”

“She wanted to make me perfect for the perfect suitor.”

“Did she ever find one?”

“Hm, I thought it was your turn.”

“In Seheron, I lost it once when a guy poisoned a bunch of kids.”

“One of these days, I want you to tell me everything about Seheron. Even the parts that you don’t like facing yourself. I think it’d be best for you to have someone to talk to.”

“Then you have to tell me about why you flinch under my hands sometimes,” she understands what he means.

“Someday.”

“Someday.”

“Ronan Almire. He was the first person my mother ever got for me to court. She picked out the worst so that one day I would be happy with whatever I got. A couple of weeks after my twelfth birthday he was visiting and we were in the stables. He made me take off all my clothes, said I was to be his wife someday and he had to see what I really looked like. He stared at me until I thought I was going to lose my toes I was so cold and stiff. He then made me get on my knees and serve him as a wife should.” 

“You didn’t have to…” he shudders. “Twelve, _fuck_ …is he still alive?”

“He is.”

“Invite him to a tavern somewhere, I wanna beat the shit out of him.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, but I get a first hit. Tell me more about you.”

“Before I got sent down South, I saw my Tama again. She could barely look me in the eye—er, I guess it was eyes back then. I think she knew that I was completely broke at that point.”

“You broke, but you’re better now. You found yourself.”

“Thank you. You know that goes for you too—you were broke but you’re better now.”

“I found myself.” 

“You did.”

“I’m allergic to strawberries.”

“I accidentally killed a nug once and blamed it on Krem so Dalish wouldn’t kill me.” 

“I once had sex in my grandparents bed with three other people.”

“I broke my arm as a kid because I fell from a coconut tree.”

“I lost my sister’s horse and never told her it was gone in the first place.”

“I was the one who stepped on Varric’s bolts the other day.”

“I once snuck into the Gallows to see my sister and nearly got locked in there by Meredith.” 

“I once fucked the Inquisitor on the War Table.” 

“I once got ate out on the Inquisitor’s throne.” 


	8. Twenty-One Weeks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It happens more often than he likes to admit.

He jolts awake at the sound of steps in his room, a habit from Seheron that he still cannot shake even after the _years_  it’s been. 

( _Years_. It’s been _years_  since he has been in Seheron and yet he can still taste the ash of a poison in his mouth—the stench of qamek and burning flesh and dust from so many crumbled buildings—the sight of so many mutilated people being forced to live their lives in a constant war zone. It’s been years and he cannot believe that he actually lasted one day outside of there without completely losing himself to the madness—it’s been so _long_ )

 That’s the nice thing of living in the Tavern—it may seem too loud and overbearing, but every single piece of wood creeks under even the lightest step giving him an edge. 

Bull does not need the edge to know who is in his room.

The chill on his side is enough to know that Ariala has gotten up

He listens as she walks to the other side of the room and picks up her clothes that had been so hazardly discarded last night in a haste to just feel each other and get that satisfaction of bare skin on bare skin. The rustling is shorter than he expects. She does not put on all of her clothes, only the bare minimum to get her through Skyhold without too many questions being asked.

Her steps pause at the door that leads out to the battlements—one last look—and she leaves quickly. 

Bull tosses and turns the rest of the night.


	9. Twenty-Three Weeks

No one sends a second glance his way when he sits down to start cleaning his axe and armor in the middle of the street. Shit, most people don’t even spare him a full first glance—but all of them do glance, they do judge him if he is an immediate threat or not, it’s what one does in Seheron. The damn Tal-Vashoth have been using a poison that was corroding his blade, making each cut nastier than the last. 

Heh, it’s more their problem and suffering than his own. 

Hissrad has been sent to watch and capture a Tal-Vashoth.

She’s human unlike most he is sent to hunt. 

More than that, she is different. 

A human tamassran is rare, but on occasion they are chosen. And by watching her with a child on her hip and her leading a group of children through the streets—avoiding the broken glass, the charcoals that still simmer in the streets from the night before—he can see it. The children cling to her, desperate for that guidance and radiance that she projects. A true tama that kisses the children’s heads and disciplines them when they step too far away from her. 

Her voice and eyes betray that perfect tamassran image. 

Maybe in a different world, where she were not just a Qunari but a qunari then she would be a member of the Ariqun. A high-priestess. 

He is unsure of why they did not make her Ben-Hassrath. She could have easily charmed any bas, her pretty eyes and soft figure drawing in all bas to fall under her leash. 

After two weeks of watching her, he realizes why. That leash that she could wrap around anyone’s neck, could easily wrap around his own. He would let her string him up and hang him after just a couple pretty words. From Seheron, or perhaps from before, she has gotten a taste of blood in her mouth and it has stained her. The power and the lust, it _consumes_  her. 

Being a Ben-Hassrath would have only sped this process. 

She was born into the Qun, his information tells him, her birth mother taken into the Qun when she was pregnant with her. Her mother is now just a laborer in the fields after an outburst of the child being taken away to be raised properly by a tamassarian.

So many bas wish to join the Qun, but when they do, they cannot handle what it demands. They fold, they become laborers. 

This girl was just one more bas that will become a laborer after all the discord she has caused in Seheron. 

He wonders why she has not just ran. The moment a Tevinter mage stepped foot near her, she could have dropped to his feet begging for him to take her with them, and they would have. A girl like her would fetch plenty of gold—that is if they planned on selling her and not just keeping her for their own pleasure. Unlike most Tal-Vasoth, she could run from the Qun and hide from it easily. Her pretty words and small impact would have concealed her in the South. 

Instead, she has blazed a trail from Par Vollen to Seheron, taking an entire group of children with her. 

Yet, as a rebel, she stays, and she burns, letting everyone feel her fury. 

He watches for weeks, waiting, trying to figure out what her plan is. 

Within a week, Hissrad watches as the last of her plan falls together. 

Another Tal-Vasoth, a former tama as well, meets with her at night, in the same Tavern that Hissrad frequents. He has seen her around the market and her eyes never stray from the girl’s form. 

The girl kisses her, pressing her entire body against her like she had actually been drinking the alcohol in her cup—but like most on Seheron, she knows better than to actually drink it. Most ignore them, but Hissrad watches intently, never once had the girl shown that she had interest like this in another.

The next night she is pressed against a Tevinter bas. Her chest bare from his unrelenting hands and she shudders as he does not even drag her away to rut her like a savage animal in the middle of the tavern. She makes him look into her eyes when he finishes, she makes him touch every bit of her body, she makes him confess, she makes him fall in love with her, the exotic Seheron native that needed saving. 

Hissrad makes eye contact with her that night, and she throws him an unabashed grin even as she bounces on his lap.

She did not need to be a Ben-Hassrath to know how to manipulate. 

Perhaps, if she had also been a Ben-Hassrath, if the Ariqun had been foolish enough, then her name would have also been Hissrad. 

She always cuts through the back garden to go to the tavern. He has her movement mapped out. Today, she will meet with the Tamassarian. Today, he will take her before she gets the chance to. 

He follows behind her, not caring if she does see him. It will be easy to take her out and he can easily chase her. In his time shadowing her, he has not seen her do one physical thing, relying on others to do the task. 

She does not have to lift a finger to take him out, though. He is stupid and does not fear her words, her smile.

She stops in her tracks when she realizes he is following her and turns to look at him. Wide eyes and then a wide smile. So sickly sweet that Hissrad feels his heart start at the poison that seeps through his blood. “Hissrad, right? I was wondering when you were going to make an advance. I’ve been trying to make you jealous,” she teases, licking her bottom lip, and Hissrad feels something deep in him stir. The same thing that stirred in him when she looked at him and laughed when she was bouncing on that bas. 

A collar is nestled at the base of her neck with a ring. 

She has left the Qun only to become a slave to that bas—nothing more than a whore—and _this is what she chooses_. 

“So will you buy me a drink tonight, or have you brought something else for me to drink?” her eyes flick down to his crotch, and she looks as though she wants to devour him. 

Hissrad swallows, and clears his head. This girl in front of him is nothing more than a demon in a Tamassran’s skin. 

Her fingers thread through his, pulling him along, her head cocking to the side. “Let’s go, I’m quite impatient. Oh—you’re quite stiff—must be Tal-Vashoth, right?”

He grunts an answer, this he did not expect, what was she doing? She must know that he’s after her. After watching her for so long and learning about her, _this_ , how easily it could be feels like a let down. 

The Tevinter bas steps out of the back entrance of the tavern right as his foot sinks into the loose soil of the garden— _foolish_. So foolish, caught up in her words as she strung them around his neck and even held his hand as she did it. 

The ground underneath their feet explodes and the last thing he catches as her hand is wretched from his, is a glimmer of white covering her. His ankle is ruined, the bomb under the ground testing the joint one last time before it gave in. He quickly stands on it anyway, ignoring the screaming of his legs and ringing in his ears. He focuses through the dust and looks for her, careful not to move unless to set off more of her traps. 

Her glimmering slows until it ends, but the collar that she wears still hums and glows faintly— _magic_ , she had used magic to protect herself from her own trap. Willing to nearly burn herself down to kill him. The bas did not fair better—she had put shrapnel in the ground as well. He bleeds and tries to stand, a gash across his throat will most likely kill him. 

  
_Brilliant_ , utterly _brilliant_. Kill him and the bas. Take the bas’ ship and escape Seheron with the children but what of the other Tamassran? 

“That’s him! That’s the savage who’s been hunting me!” she cries out and shrinks against the wall of the tavern, still trying to regain composure after the explosion. Still, even as the bas takes his last breaths, she sucks him dry, using him till the end. 

What she doesn’t count for is the bas ripping her chest open with a knife, using her blood to heal himself and power him. 

Hissrad does not think and cuts him down before he can even cast a spell. 

She sputters now. It seems the collar would only save her once as it doesn’t stop the blood from choking her. 

Even as she dies in front of him, there is a burning fire, as if she is trying to figure out how to take him down with her. He spreads a poultice on her chest and forces a potion down her throat. 

She tries to choke on it and nearly heaves it up, but he forces her to let it heal her. 

“Why?” she breathes and if she had any strength, she would rip him apart, but there is also a calm in her eyes. Accepting.

Ah, if she were to fail here, the tamassran would at least be able to save the children—in the end, it was her goal to save the children. 

When the last bit falls into place, he pulls out a small vial of a milky white liquid. She knows. 

“Why?” she tears up and perhaps she knows that her birth mother also was once forced to drink the same liquid.

“Shouldn’t waste someone like you,” he forces her to drink the liquid. 

Hissrad watches as her eyes glaze over, the fire in her eyes finally doused. 

Her brilliance gone.

Bull wakes with a start, and nearly falls to the pan besides the bed and wretches up what’s left in his stomach. He calms himself and breathes but it does not help get rid of the image of Ariala’s eyes blank and dead—of him doing that to her. 

He reaches for her, needing to see her, needing to see her warm, brown eyes glazed with sleep and not qamek. He reaches over in the bed and wonders if she visited last night, he cannot remember now. All of her is blending together and he cannot discern what is truly real. 

He gets up from his bed, not caring to throw on much else besides his pants and boots before he exits his room. The sky is still dark but on the east he can see the first signs of dawn approaching. A scout starts when she sees him burst from his room, she tries not to look nervous around him, but she’s practically shaking in the chill. 

“Where’s the Inquisitor?” he asks her, not bothering to mess with pleasantries. He needs to know where he can see her. 

She glances around as if she wishes she could defer to someone else to answer the question. “She went for a morning ride down to the troops—ah, I don’t know when she will be back, but I can send for her, or er, I can go to her if you really need the Herald.” 

He shakes his head, fearful that perhaps if he were to act that something would happen. 

Once again, he would let her reveal herself to him. 

It is not until the light inks across the sky, that he spots her Marcher on the other side of the bridge, slowly making its way across. He counts his breaths as she sides across, until he can really confirm that it is her, and _it is_. It is her talking to Cullen as they make their first morning rounds. 

She glances up at him on the battlements—once again making eye contact with him and laughing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbh this might be an actual AU that I do eventually or at least this is a reoccurring dream of Bull's with slight variations of him hunting her


	10. Week 24

Bull thinks that maybe one day he would get used to her slipping away from him after sex, but damn does he hate it when she shifts and he feels so damn cold even though they have the fire going hotter than it should to keep her room warm through all the drafts. 

The new worst, is when she falls asleep on the wrong side, on his left side, and he is unable to see her unless he turns on his side, which he cannot do for extended periods of time. His missing eye becomes most evident right now in the dead of the night with only the sound of the wind howling and her soft breath puffing. All in all is a problem that irritates him and leaves him shifting in the bed to not so subtly move. 

Getting out of bed would be his best option, pretending to get a swig of water and then settling on her other side. Another part of him just wants to grab her and move her that way—she’d probably protest but instantly fall back asleep. He, himself could also just move over her and shift until he was on the left side of the bed. 

He settles for the last one. Less movement and almost instantaneous results. She does stir as he hovers over her and both eyes peak under lashes, watching him curiously and confused but ultimately too subdued. Ariala almost even follows his movement because as he settles on her left, she sneaks up to his side against him. Like always when sleep ebs at her, she nuzzles him and shifts even farther up  and making the journey of arranging herself around him until she press kisses to the crook of his neck.

“What’s wrong, baby?” she asks, her voice dripping saccharine. 

He shivers and his arm around her tightens, bringing her closer in. _Baby_ , it rings in his ears over everything and _damn_  does he want hear her say it again and again. Despite himself, he thinks he might even be flushing from her words and her wandering fingers that slowly travel along lines on his chest. 

If he waits long enough, she will fall back asleep no doubt.

“Just uncomfortable,” he answers her, rubbing her back. 

And just like that her hand stills and her breath slows. 


End file.
